


catch my disease

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Daisy and Coulson are the worst soccer parents ever, Daisy's huge crush on Coulson, Developing Relationship, Director Daisy Johnson, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Married Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 00:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6682819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson has the flu. Daisy is only too happy to take care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	catch my disease

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skyepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/gifts), [RowboatCop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/gifts), [BrilliantlyHorrid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrilliantlyHorrid/gifts).



She expected him to be an awful patient, but he’s mostly a quiet one. 

Maybe it’s because he got sick, and now is stuck, while working in the new, renovated Cocoon. Daisy imagines he would fight his strict bedrest instructions if they were back at the Playground, with many people depending on him and asking for guidance at every turn.

And the Cocoon is her kingdom, so he obeys her orders. She thought he would try to escape or make himself useful but when she finally gets a break to check in on him he’s where she left him, in one of the visitor’s beds, shivering with fever.

The bunks at the Cocoon are white and aseptic and she feels bad for Coulson, it almost looks like a hospital bed.

He has the blankets pulled up to his chin when she comes in, and he’s looking at the ceiling.

“Hey,” she says, feeling bad for having left him alone while she arranged the work load for the rest of the day. Coulson seems to be startled by her voice, sitting up. “You don’t have to…”

But he’s already sat up.

She presses her hand against his forehead.

“You really have a fever.”

“And feeling it too,” he says, giving her a weak smile.

She’s not used to seeing him like this, so weak in such an ordinary way. Gunshot, cuts, injuries sustained in dramatic rescues or fighting against Nazis. Look all defeated because of a common flu? It’s somehow scarier.

“I’m sorry I can’t make you more comfortable,” she says, pouring a glass of water for him.

“I’m sorry to impose on you,” he says in return.

Impose? Really?

She checks his pulse too. Racing.

“Your wrist feels so soft,” she says, drawing her fingers over Coulson’s wrist a couple of times. “It’s not normally this soft.”

She looks up to find Coulson’s confused expression. She withdraws her hand awkwardly.

“I meant - I don’t mean I notice how it normally feels, your… your…”

“Wrist?”

“Yeah.”

She looks away and there’s a moment of silence. She realizes she’s basically in the same bed as Coulson.

She changes the subject.

“I’m afraid we don’t have any doctor on call here…”

“It’s just the flu,” Coulson tells her in a soft, comforting voice. “I just need to take the rest of the day and sleep.”

“I was saying we don’t have any doctor on call here but I think I can deal with it myself.”

He looks curious.

“I’m going to go grab something,” she tells him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Even through his t-shirt the heat of his body is unbearable.

She comes back with a bunch of meds. And she means a bunch, she has them bunched in her arms.

“They’re all every six hours except this one,” she says, setting the antibiotic apart, putting the rest of the bottles on the nightstand. “This one will make you feel better in general. This one is for your throat. This one is for the fever. And this one will help you sleep.”

Coulson stares at her, a weirded out expression. Did he get everything? She can repeat it.

“You know a lot about this,” he comments.

“I had to,” she replies. “When I was living on my own I had to learn how to take care of myself. Luckily I had the internet for all the stuff I had to learn.”

Suddenly he looks very distressed.

“I’m sorry. You should have had people looking after you. You shouldn’t have been alone.”

She shrugs. “My parents were out there wanting to take care of me. Knowing that makes it better, you know.”

Coulson looks at the various drugs spread on the bed covers on his lap.

“Well, your knowledge and services are appreciated,” he says, charmingly. He is a charming patient. Daisy didn’t see that coming. “Thank you, Doctor Johnson.”

“Hey. That sounds good. Maybe I should have followed in my father’s footsteps.”

“It’s never too late,” he says. “Scrubs would look good on you.”

Daisy frowns at the comment. Coulson as a patient is… flirty? Maybe she’s reading too much into it. But she appreciates the encouragement. He’s only being nice and only being Coulson but it means something - for a long stretch in her life Daisy was used to thinking about herself only as a high school dropout who would never get very far. Coulson looks at her like she could become a brain surgeon in a couple of months. It’s a good change.

“Take these and sleep a bit,” she tells him. Coulson nods dutifully. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours with some food.”

“Sounds good, thank you.”

“Hey, the Cocoon is my domain. You have to do as I say. I can’t let the Director of SHIELD suffer painfully between these walls. It’d be bad for business.”

Oh god she’s trying too hard, it’s not funny, Coulson won’t think it’s funny. She just - she is not used to having people letting her take care of them. Which she discovers she enjoys. A lot. She’s just not experienced in it.

He sleeps for a long time after that, when the meds start kicking in. Daisy quietly cracks the door to his room open every few minutes, checking he’s okay. Each time he’s in a different position on the bed. Daisy wonders if it’s the illness or if he normally moves a lot in his sleep. She probably shouldn’t be thinking about that. But he has such a cute frowny face when he sleeps. Leaving the gross sweaty part aside.

After two hours of discussing protocol with her subordinates she finally gets the time off she needs to prepare some food. Coulson is sleeping but he’ll need sustenance when he wakes up. Daisy is not sure why she has gone into such mother hen mode over him so quickly.

It feels weird cooking for someone else, even something simple, maybe because she’s never really done it. She puts way more effort than the recipe requires and probably takes twice the time.

And she knows she takes a long time because when she returns to Coulson’s room he’s awake again.

“How are you feeling?”

Coulson makes a pained noise in reply.

“Well, this might help.”

She leaves the tray on the nightstand and sits with Coulson on the bed, passing him the bowl. Coulson examines the contents with the curiosity that always shows whenever he’s near food. 

“It’s apple compote. Nothing fancy like your stuff but it’s good. It’ll make you feel better.”

“Thanks.”

She watches him eat, enjoying the warmth of the bed. The Cocoon is a slightly chilly place. No matter how much Daisy fiddles with the heating it never really stops being chilly. And now that she spends more time here than at hq Daisy is beginning to get that chill in her bones too. She feels guilty thinking that Coulson might have fallen ill because of it.

“That’s a lot of cinnamon,” he comments of her culinary offering.

“I like cinnamon.”

“I can see that,” he says. “It’s very sweet, I like that.”

Daisy smiles, oddly touched by the compliment, because that was exactly the intent. Something sweet for Coulson.

Then he suddenly stops eating.

“It’s very good,” he tells her. “It’s just…” he makes a pained face. “I can’t eat any more.”

“That’s okay.”

She takes the bowl off his hands and places it on the tray. She can heat it up later if he wants more. He should want more, he hasn’t eaten anything else the whole day.

“I’m sorry you have to see me like this,” he says.

Daisy snorts. She really doesn’t care about Coulson maintaining a façade of dignity around her. They are close, he shouldn’t care about that stuff, they’re not exactly strangers. 

“Please,” she says.

“I haven’t gotten sick in a long, long time,” he says, suddenly lost in thought. “Not since… coming back.”

“Oh.”

She hadn’t thought about that.

“I was hoping the GH-325 had made me resistant to viruses or something,” he says, chuckling. His cheeks are almost apple red now. Daisy looks at him. It would be cute if, well, if he wasn’t sick and in discomfort. “It’s stupid, I know.”

“It’s not stupid.”

Coulson drops his gaze, looking at his hands. The right one glistens with sweat. He clenches it into a fist.

“I know right now you must think I’m so - disgusting.”

“You could never be disgusting to me,” Daisy says, rather solemnly.

His expression softens and he looks up at her, amused at how earnest she is.

“In any case,” he says, trying to shift the weird mood - and failing. “You shouldn’t get too close. You might catch it.”

Now Daisy looks down at her hands.

“You know, it’s the opposite with me,” she confesses. “I haven’t gotten sick since… Since I transformed. And it freaks me out. I know I’m not human anymore. But it makes me feel less human, you know.”

“Maybe then you should get close,” Coulson tells her, teasing her. “See if you can catch it. If it makes you feel better.”

Daisy knows he doesn’t mean it that way but she’s amused by the implications.

“Oh yeah?” she says, moving up the bed to sit right besides him, her knee poking his leg. “Is that an offer?”

“What…? Ah, no. I didn’t mean-”

“No, no, it’s a _great_ idea,” she tells him, pressing a grin against Coulson’s mouth.

His lips are dry and kind of salty and Daisy feels a bit sick with nervousness, because she knows Coulson doesn’t see her like that, but she just can’t help herself. Maybe it’s seeing Coulson like this, which reminds her he is human and fragile. Or maybe it’s because Coulson lets her see him like this, he always has trouble letting people see him as vulnerable. Part of that it’s because he’s Director, part of that it’s because he’s Coulson.

He stays frozen as she kisses him, but at least he doesn’t pull back or push her away. She feels weird kissing again after so long - her last relationship went up in flames a year ago and she hadn’t really felt the desire to kiss anyone since then. It’s weird but it’s nice. Despite the whole Coulson being sick angle.

When she pulls away she is half-ready to see disgust or horror on Coulson’s face.

He blinks at her, his expression curiously neutral.

“I think you might have given me too many drugs,” he breathes. “That stuff has secondary effects.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Like _hallucinations_?”

Coulson nods.

“Very vivid ones,” he says.

She smiles. “I didn’t think you’d be okay with this,” she confesses. She imagined he’d very politely turn her down and express how much he values their friendship and how they’re like family or something like that. She had somehow prepared herself for that.

“I didn’t think I’d be okay with it, either,” Coulson tells her.

But he chuckles a bit and drops his gaze, like he’s amazed at himself, at his feelings.

“But you’re happy you’re okay with this?” she asks, hopeful.

“Yeah. Yes, of course. Just… confused I am.”

Daisy knows he’s going to need a little nudge to embrace this whole new thing.

“Wanna help me see if Inhumans can catch the flu?” she asks.

He stares at her and shrugs comically.

“This is your domain,” he throws back at her. “I have to do as told.”

Daisy wraps her arms around his neck.

“Yes, you have to.”

 

+

 

“You’re getting old,” she declares after another onslaught of coughing.

He gives her a hate face. “Very funny.”

In the time Daisy has been gone he has transferred to the couch and hoarded basically every blanket they own. She sits by his side, pressing the back of her hand to his temple.

“Yeah, you are worse than this morning,” she declares.

“I feel worse.”

“I thought Agent Coulson was stoic,” she teases, drawing back her hand and pulling the blankets up to his neck. She jokes, but she hates seeing him like this. In part because she knows Phil hates it.

“Where’s Toni?” he asks. 

“She asked to spend the night at a friend’s. Said she didn’t want to risk getting whatever you have right before the semi-final.”

“She really wants to win that tournament. That girl is so intense,” he shakes his head.

Daisy pats his shoulders. “Yeah, because her parents are so chill and well-adjusted, not ambitious at all.”

It’s not like SHIELD went from cinders to the biggest most trusted intelligence agency in the world in a few years thanks to them. Not intense at all.

“Hey, I’m chill, and I’m not ambitious, you’ve been steamrolling me for twelve years,” he complains.

She chuckles and stands up.

“Let me shower and get you something to eat,” she tells him. “Mr I’m so chill I jump on moving planes for girls.”

He makes a hey-wait gesture with his hand, one she recognizes most often in herself. That’s what you get from working and living and sleeping with the same person for years. You merge. Daisy would find the idea annoying but Phil is cuter than her when he makes gesture. 

She hurries up in the shower, not wanting to leave him alone much longer - he’d been alone all day, even though they were constantly in contact about the mission. Daisy gets into some comfortable clothes, sweatpants and all, and massages her bruises a bit and she’s as good as new.

She takes her time in the kitchen, pushing aside coloring books and Hulk toys, knowing Phil has probably dozed off for a bit, bent over some file he was evaluating when she came in (always taking work home, the almighty profiler - oh well, she can’t complain, she’s the one who tasks him with it in the first place).

He grins when he notices the warm smell of apples and cinnamon, opening his eyes as Daisy enters the room..

“That smells delicious. My compliments to the chef.”

Daisy wiggles a bit of room for herself in this, Phil’s Fortress of Blankitude. The couch feels so warm under her now, the fever must have really gone up.

“Well, there’s only one chef here but thanks.”

She hands him the little bowl. Pink. There’s a lot of pink in the house now, Toni is going through her pink phase, like Picasso with the blue. Daisy likes it, it makes the house look softer, which she appreciates when she comes back from a mission.

“You haven’t made this in a while,” Phil comments.

“You don’t often get sick,” she says, grateful for it. He might be a good patient, but she’s not a great doctor when it comes to her loved ones.

She runs her fingers through his hair as he grabs the spoon to begin. His nape feels very hot and Daisy sighs, worried. The joke about him being old was just that, a joke, and he’s in excellent health, but they still should be careful. He’s not a young agent fresh out of the Academy, anyway.

“What’s this?” Phil asks, pointing at the tiny flower in the middle of the cup.

“That’s a - uh - a daisy,” she replies, feeling vaguely self-conscious about it. They had a bunch of little daisies in the kitchen and she did something impulsive and put one in the bowl.

“Why is is there?” Phil wants to know.

She feels her cheeks burn with embarrassment. Which is ridiculous, she should be embarrassed about this. “Well, because, Daisy loves you, that’s why it’s there.”

He puts down the bowl.

“Daisy loves me?” he asks, lighting up like this is new, life-changing information to him, the clown.

“Yes, weirdo, your wife loves you, no need to get dramatic about it. See? You _are_ getting old.”

He groans, offended and he grabs her by the waist and he might be an old man but he sure doesn’t kiss like one. His face is hot and sweaty against hers but Daisy couldn’t care less, not with the way his tongue is sliding inside her mouth as he takes her roughly between his lips. His fingers twist into her top and pull her closer until Daisy moans a bit.

When he lets her go she looks away for a moment, licking her bottom lip and regrouping - maybe she’s the weird one, getting all flustered because her husband kisses her.

“Great, now I’ve definitely gotten whatever you have. I can’t go to the match either.”

Coulson tightens his grip on her waist, keeping her pressed to him.

“I happen to know the school barred you from attending official matches for the rest of the season, due to un-parent-like behavior,” he whispers as he kisses her neck.

“How did you know that?” she asks.

He gestures. “I’m an agent of SHIELD. Of course I know what my Director has been up to.”

Whatever, Daisy thinks, in a very un-parent-like matter, she doesn’t care, the kid’s godfather can go with her - sorry, Mack, the Director is pulling rank here, she’s trying to get laid.

She wiggles her eyebrows at Phil, pressing her hands to his chest.

“Well, since neither of us are going to that match…” 

He gives her a skeptical look. “Didn’t you just say I was getting old?”

“So old,” she says, smiling and pulling his t-shirt over his head.


End file.
